During the consortium meeting in Rome in February, some of the main researchers in the CHEOPS project spontaneously answered two main questions in front of a video camera: What are the main achievements of CHEOPS so far – and what are you going to tackle next? See below for their answers.

High efficiencies achieved, stability to be increased

Sylvain Nicolay, coordinator of the CHEOPS project, is satisfied with the initial efficiencies of perovskite single junction cells and is now looking forward to see further progress at stability, the development of tandem cells and the impact assessment of perovskite technology.

Next step: Upscaling

Arnaud Walter reports a record efficiency for the 5x5 cm² perovskite cell of "his" Work Package, which aims at developing the technological building blocks to upscale perovskite single junction cells. The logical, and planned, next step: Developing a 10x10 cm² module by February 2018.

While his colleague Arnaud Walter tackles lab-oriented processes to develop perovskite single junction cells, Armin Wedel and "his" Work Package focus more on production processes that are feasible in a pre-production environment. The next step here is to select the most promising "recipes" for perovskite cells and increase their stability.

Pierre Boucard is leading the Work Package that assesses perovskite technology from a societal, economical and environmental point of view: What happens if a perovskite solar cell is leaking or catches fire? What existing or future policies could potentially hinder the use of perovskite solar cells? It is this kind of questions that he and his team have to answer in the near future.

Matthias Bräuninger is in charge of the Work Package that aims to combine the best of two worlds: Silicon and perovskite solar cells. Results have been promising so far on an area of 1 cm². The goal is to repeat these promising results on a larger area.

Beyond efficiencies, processes and materials

Aldo Di Carlo, as the host of the consortium meeting in Rome, says what his key take-away was when seeing the progress of CHEOPS after one year.